The workshop was held in Marseille, France, from 18 to 20 April 2002, in the splendid Napoleonic Palais du Pharo overlooking the harbour's entrance. Twenty-two scientists from eighteen countries, all volunteer to join the project, participated in the meeting, an encouraging sign considering the rather extensive geographic distribution of the initial cote group (see Fig. 1). The list is not exhaustive, and additional institutes are expected to join the project in the future, completing the geographic coverage.
In his welcoming remarks, the Director General of CIESM, Frédéric Briand, presented the scope and objectives of the meeting, stressing the needed development of synergies based on the use of common procedures and methods. He noted with appreciation the participation of the current and former Chairmen of the CIESM Committee on Marine Biogeochemistry, Nicholas Fisher and Scott Fowler, who would soon follow with keynote presentations on central biomonitoring issues. He then introduced with much appreciation the initiator and coordinator of the workshop, Hervé Thébault, who recalled the long path which had led to the present meeting.
At the origin, in the aftermath of the Chernobyl accident, a coordinated research program called GIRMED (Global Inventory of Radioactivity in the MEDiterranean Sea) was launched by CIESM during its 31st Congress held in Athens in 1988 (see Thébault et al., 1998a). As other international programs at the time, it aimed at gathering data sets collected from many scientific institutions.